1) George Condo: Mental States at the New Museum of Contemporary Art
January 26 - May 8, 2011

For the past three decades, American painter and sculptor George Condo has used traditional materials to reimagine art history and conflate the ordinary with the fantastic and grotesque. His...

1) Tino Sehgal's This Progress at the Guggenheim Museum

An exhibition that involves strolling the circular ramp of Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic New York landmark, while having serious, philosophical discussions with perfect strangers against a backdrop of pristine white walls - purposefully devoid of "art" - sounds lackluster at...

During graduate school, I spent several hours a day, multiple days a week, in the Art Reading Room at the New York Public Library on 42nd street (pictured above). The splendor of the facility alone was...

When I grow up I want to be a...

Children often fill in the blank with a myriad of respectable positions -- doctor, lawyer, police officer, teacher, etc. -- but few proclaim their intent to be an art historian. I was that rare exception -- a fourteen year-old irrevocably captivated...

In his poignant memoir, A Moveable Feast (1964), Ernest Hemingway wrote that, "There is never any ending to Paris." He was referring specifically to the way the magical city stays with you, even after you've gone, but it's also true that...

Christian Marclay, The Clock, Edition of 6, Single channel video. Duration: 24 hours
Photos: Ben Westoby

As the holiday season approaches, and more particularly, the dawning of a new year,...

Though Berlin and Los Angeles are often called Sister Cities, this cliché was the furthest thing from my mind as I arrived in the heart of Deutschland on a dark, rainy morning. Their differences, however, were abundantly clear. I glanced down at my itinerary -- five pages of art adventures,...

Could one spend six straight hours on Twitter having meaningful, provocative discussions about art with perfect strangers? Seems improbable, if not impossible, but it can -- and has -- been done. Allow me to bear witness.

A few weeks ago you might remember #askacurator day, where museums around the world...

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah
Black rock, salt crystals, earth, red water (algae)
Photograph by Gianfranco Gorgoni, 1970
Art © Estate of Robert Smithson/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

A loud abrasive buzzing bellows from the...

I walked into the Buck House in Los Angeles as I have so many times before, half-expecting John Knuth, Country Club's director, to greet me with a smile & offer me an iced tea from the kitchen to my right, but...wait...the kitchen was no longer to...

I met Basquiat tonight. Oh sure, I've known his brilliant work for years - and loved it for as long as that - but, tonight, I spent 90 glorious minutes in the enigmatic artist's inner sanctum. I was no longer a detached viewer engaging his work from a comfortable, art...

Whether it's the charm of his candor, the confidence exuded by his high pitch, his witty intonation or simply his overall prosody, it's hard to say, but there's something about Irving Blum that captivates his audience (large or small, intimate conversation or public forum).

I've heard the...

1. It's all relative, especially Beauty

I can't imagine a more fitting title for Baldessari's current retrospective (on view at LACMA through 12 September 2010) than Pure Beauty. The exhibition title references an early Baldessari work of the same name from 1966-68, an off-white canvas with the phrase literally...

For as long as I can remember the name John Baldessari has been synonymous with brilliance - even near godliness - in the Los Angeles art world, but global cognizance of his monumental influence on contemporary art is a far more recent development. In the past decade, it seems as...